Lorenzon gave up half a grin. “They get waythe hell bent out of shape.”
Tovar was frowning. “This guy thinks he’s smarterthan us?”
Rossi’s short laugh was as bitter as it was humorless. “This UnSub thinks he’s smarter than both of you, Detectives Lorenzon and Tovar, and everybody you work with in your PDs. He’s smarter than us, too, smarter than the whole FBI, and—perhaps most important—smarter even than the killers he’s mimicking. He thinks he can do their crimes betterthan they did. He imagines he’ll get away with it. They all got caught, but he won’t—in his freedom, that makes him the king, and the famous killers he’s imitating are his court.”
Hotchner said, “Now, take a person with that much ego, and all the other qualities we’ve outlined, and how do you suppose he would react to us pointing out his mistakes?”
Tovar said, “But maybe they aren’t mistakes. If he’s trying to do these murders better than the originals, maybe he views what you call mistakes as improvements.”
Hotchner nodded. “That’s valid. So these aren’t mistakes—they are personal flourishes, improvements. And so how would he react to his improvements being viewed as errors?”
“He’d go batshit,” Lorenzon said.
Rossi grinned. “That’s as good a technical term for it as I could come up with myself.”
Morgan said, “He also made a mistake—or maybe an improvement—with the women in Wauconda.”
Lorenzon frowned. “Which was?”
Prentiss jumped in. “When Ted Bundy committed the original crime, he also lured two women away from the lake, killing them, burying them in the woods. The difference is that Bundy placed a body part of a third female victim—one who was never identified—in the grave with the other two. Our UnSub overlooked that detail."
Rossi said, “Let’s call it another mistake.”
Tovar sat forward. “And you want to use a public relations campaign citing this madman’s mistakes to drive him into a frenzy?”
Rossi shrugged. “Once we figure out how to know when, where, and who he might lash out against, perhaps. If we can force him into the open, and into making a real mistake, we’ll catch him. The key is to do it without losing another victim.”
The two detectives stared at him.
Hotchner drew their attention, saying, “That’s why we’re not suggesting any publicity campaign at this time. When we know more about our UnSub, we may want to try that, to draw him out. Not yet, though.”
Rossi said, “I cantell you a couple more things about him, however.”
The detectives looked up at Rossi expectantly.
“Even though this UnSub is copying crimes, his rage is as real and as great as those who originally committed them. It would be a mistake to read this as a cold-blooded killer playing copycat from a prepared script.”
“If it’s rage,” Lorenzon said, “why the elaborate re-creations? Why not just lash out?”
“This rage is nothing new to our UnSub," Rossi said. “He’s felt this fury for a long time, possibly his whole life. But now something has fueled him to act out that fury. If we find the stressor that triggered all this, we find the beginning of the chain.”
Tovar frowned. “Are you saying he’s killed more than these five people?”
“It’s possible,” Rossi said.
“Oh hell,” Lorenzon said.
Rossi looked from one local detective to the other. “I’ve also seen enough of these cases to know this UnSub is a cop buff—the type that thinks he’s smarter than all of us cops combined. So the next thing to be aware of is that almost certainly he’ll be injecting himself into this investigation.”
“How so?” Lorenzon asked.
“That, I have no idea,” Rossi said, then added: “ Yet… But, trust me, he’ll find a way. He’ll want to know what we know, and he’ll want to prove to himself that he’s smarter than we are.”
Hotchner added, “By insinuating himself in the investigation, the UnSub gains a feeling of power. This reassures his feeling of superiority, when we can’t figure out it’s him, and he’s been right in front of us.”
Tilting her head, Prentiss asked, “Were there gawkers at the Chicago Heights crime scene?”
“There are always some,” Tovar said with a nod. “Mostly neighbors.”
“Possibly the UnSub, too,” Prentiss said. “Did you get pictures of the crowd?”
“No… I never even thought of it.”
Prentiss didn’t give him a hard time about that, just asked, “How about Chinatown? Any gawkers there?”
Lorenzon said, “You know there were. Half of Chinatown came around, and a bunch of walk-ups who just happened to be in the neighborhood eating Chinese and buying trinkets.”
“Photos of the crowd?”
“I didn’t take any, and I didn’t specifically ask that any be taken. Someone else might have. Possible TV news footage might cover that. I’ll look into it.”
“Thanks,” Prentiss said. “We might get lucky. If the UnSub shows up to check out what’s going on, we might catch a picture of him. If we spot a face at more than one scene, with the locations this far apart? It might just belong to our guy.”
“No shit,” Tovar said.
“It would be nice if it was that easy,” Hotchner said dryly. “My guess is it won’t be.”
Lorenzon’s cell phone chirped. They all turned to him as he yanked it off his belt and checked the number. “My boss,” he said. “Better take this.” He rose and left the room, all their eyes still on him.
Before Hotchner could start up again, Garcia spoke through the computer. “Emily?”
Prentiss looked at the screen, where Garcia was staring at her with wide, bright eyes. “What?”
“The Cook County ME has just ID’d your body in the barrel.”
Garcia had the attention of everyone in the room now.
“Who is he?” Prentiss asked.
“His name is Bobby Edels. He was twenty. The ME had to identify him through dental records.”
Hotchner asked, “What do you know about him?”
Garcia said, “He worked at a Fix-It Mate in Mundelein.”
“Fix-It Mate?” Reid asked.
“Small chain of home-repair stores,” Tovar said. “Dozen or so across the Midwest.”
Jareau asked, “And Mundelein?”
“Far northern suburb,” Lorenzon said. “No telling how he got from there to Chinatown.”
Reid said, “The starting point is whenhe disappeared.”
“March twenty-first,” Garcia said from the computer. “He was last seen when he clocked out from work that day.”
Prentiss frowned. “Almost a month before the shooting in Chicago Heights…”
Hotchner said, “He’s been at this even longer than we thought.”
“Sunshine,” Morgan said, looking toward the computer (he and Garcia had a close, joking relationship), “have you got anything else on Edels?”
“His parents live in North Barrington. Cook County has sent officers to inform the family.”
“Nothing else?”
“Still digging,” Garcia said.
“That’s my girl.”
Hotchner said, “All right, let’s get to work. David, you and Reid visit Edels’s parents. Maybe they know something that can help.”
Half out of his seat, Tovar said, “I’d like to go with them.”
“Fine,” Hotchner said. “Prentiss, you work the victimology.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Morgan, you and Detective Lorenzon hit the Fix-It Mate. Interview Edels’s coworkers. See if they have security video of the parking lot that might tell us something.”
“You got it,” Morgan said.
“JJ, try to keep the media at bay a while longer, and meantime I’ll keep going over the material we have, to see if we missed something.”
Except for Prentiss and Hotchner, they all rose at once and emptied the conference room to work their assignments. Sneaking a glance at Hotchner, Prentiss noticed that his typically serious expression seemed even more grave.